Freshness and security drive processors to vacuum chamber systems.

Blocks weighing 40 lbs. and bricks as small as 1 lb. are being run through chamber units, and even larger blocks are being packaged in modified units. By removing a seal bar, cheese makers are vacuum packing 260-lb. blocks of Swiss, parmesan and other cheeses, replacing snorkel-vacuum machines that evacuate only half the atmospheric oxygen with chamber units that leave as little as 0.5%, says Multivac's Bill Williams, product manager of chamber systems.